EU Closer To Rejecting Software Patents

niekko writes "BusinessWeek is reporting on the hot subject of European software patent directive. 'The European Parliament moved Tuesday toward rejecting a proposed law creating a single way of patenting software across the European Union, officials said -- a move that would effectively kill the legislation since lawmakers do not plan to set forth a new version.'"

Comments

More details

[Iphtashu Fitz]

are available over at Groklaw.

Re:Haven' t we heard this before?

[JPMH]

I thought this was the 2nd or 3rd time that software patent directive has come up. How do anyone know that there won't be another version for us to talk about months from now?

According to the rules, if it gets rejected outright by the Parliament tomorrow, it can't come back for at least three years (if ever).

A more likely eventual route to "harmonisation" allowing software patents could be through decisions of a proposed Community-wide Patent Court, if the EU ever manages to agree to set the thing up.

The CPC has been a long-standing goal of the EU system for a long time.

Re:If only...

[nickos]

Actually, I think the best thing would be for the directive to be passed with the 21 cross-party amendments (read more about the Buzek-Rocard-Duff amendments here: http://wiki.ffii.org/AmPlenPr050701En and here: http://swpat.ffii.org/papers/europarl0309/amends05 /komprom0506.en.pdf)

Failing that we want a rejection of course...

Re:Killing this directive is dangerous.

[cortana]

I believe it was http://www.patent.gov.uk/about/ippd/faq/softpat.ht m, linked from one of the numerous FFII emails we were all bombarded with around the time of the JURI consultation last year.

I have highlighted the outright lies with italics:

"Won't the introduction of the Directive on computer-implemented inventions stifle innovation in the software industry?"

"The proposed Directive does not introduce or extend the patentability of software. In the UK, patents have been granted for computer-implemented inventions for decades. This has not hindered the expansion of the Internet, the development of open source software, nor the continuing growth of the software industry."

"Why is the proposed Directive trying to extend the patentability of computer-implemented inventions?"

"The approach adopted by the UK Government and the European Commission in the proposed Directive is to clarify the current position on patentability of computer-implemented inventions and confirm that only those inventions that involve a technical contribution can be protected by patents."

Remember, the words "technical contribution" are lawyerly weasel-words that allow an otherwise invalid patent to be approved.

"Why is the Government ignoring the views of software developers?"

The UK position is based on a wide-ranging consultation carried out in 2000/2001 that supported the clarification of the current law and continued restrictions on the patentability of business methods.

I believe that claims that the consultation was wide-ranging and balanced have been debunked elsewhere. It was done with about the same fairness as the survey the Home Office put out, that shows that most people are in favour of ID cards. ;)

"Won't Europe end up with the system that now exists in the United States?"

The Government believes that we should aim to avoid the width of patentability now allowed in the United States: this is why it pressed the European Commission for a Directive following its consultation.

This shows that, at best, the UK Patent Office is hopelessly naive.

"Doesn't the European Commission's proposal extend rather than clarify patentability?"

"The proposals originally put forward by the European Commission reflect to a great extent the responses that the DTI received in an extensive consultation on this issue in 2000/2001, and aim to clarify the situation. The Government believes that the proposals will in fact be good for the UK software industry, in clarifying a contentious area of intellectual property law, and for the UK and Europe as a whole by reinforcing a system which will counter the ever-increasing trend towards the wider granting of patents seen in the USA.

Note that the specific question asked here is deftly avoided.

The page goes on in this way; further analysis can be found here, here, and here.

It was rejected!

[q.kontinuum]

The patent directive was rejected! 640 votes for rejection, 18 against rejection!